I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being stuck. That feeling of, in everything you do, just treading water. You’re not moving, forward or backward. And sometimes it feels like you can barely keep your head above water. Or despite all your efforts, there doesn’t seem to be any proof that you’re making progress. Everyone around you is moving forward (that’s your perception) while you’re lost in a case of stuckness.
Nothing Happens Overnight
Popular lore tells us that success happens overnight. When a ‘new star’ appears in Hollywood, they’re often described as bursting onto the scene. We don’t usually hear about the years of struggle, all the times they were passed on. Just ask Brie Larson.1 Or the author whose first book hits a bestseller list. We don’t know how many times the manuscript was rejected, how close they may have come to giving up.
My first essay, “On Being Black,” was published in 2005. It was the first time any of my work had been accepted for publication. It had been rejected multiple times by multiple publications, along with many other manuscripts. And it was only accepted after an editor saw its potential, suggested ways to improve it, and then invited me to resubmit. I was always, in the beginning, impatient because I thought everything should have happened faster. And in its own way, that created paralysis and invited in stuckness.
Ditching Stuckness
It’s no fun being stuck. For me, it always feels like I’m spinning and going nowhere fast. It’s when the rewrite of a manuscript takes longer than I think it should. Or when I am plagued by a wave of fatigue, and don’t get in as much writing as I think I should. And how, despite my repeated efforts, I struggle to effectively promote my books. Combined, these have added up to decades of frustration. Still, I persist.
Getting unstuck isn’t always easy. But one thing that helps pull me out of a particular funk is deliberate practice. That means sitting down at my desk, or in a coffee shop, to write every day. Because every day I write I’m honing my skills. It is not just writing, but specific and strategic tasks to help me improve. Sometimes that means focusing on dialogue, or action scenes. In terms of running, it means doing intervals, or running with a weighted vest.
Stuckness is a part of our life journey, but don’t let it bog you down. Take action to get unstuck and break through.
And remember that you are loved, you are worth, and you matter. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to be—wholly and unapologetically—who you are.
- Alter, A. (2023). Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When it Matters Most, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, pp. XI–XIII. [↩]
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